Time to expand

I’m 30 weeks pregnant today so expansion is front and centre for me right now. I can’t hug my husband without my camel hump of a belly getting in the way.

Beyond this, I have been thinking a lot about life expansion.

It’s so easy to stay comfortable – to keep doing what you’re good at and perfect a nicely contained life.

But I seem to always choose something different.

I have made a habit of welcoming chaos and there are times when I question the wisdom of this. Why mess with a happy situation by opening all these doors to unknowable, unpredictable experiences?

The answer? I keep coming back to Christmas. What will Christmas be like in 20 years’ time if I keep travelling down my well-worn path?

I’m about to become a mother – something I am uniquely unqualified for as a youngest child who has only changed nappies under supervision – and that is both exciting and terrifying.

I am afraid of losing the person I have worked so hard to become and of saying goodbye to things that I love in favour of things I have no idea about (and may not like).

But then: Christmas. Where do I want to be on Christmas Day in 2037? I hope to be with my family at our house – a family and home that I helped create.

It’s going to take risk and effort and work to get there. I am going to have to drastically expand my emotional capacity, and improve my abilities and development new ones. I am going to have to grow and stretch and expend enormous amounts of energy on uncertain outcomes.

It comes down to having some skin in the game. It’s one thing to sit on the sidelines and watch other people strain and struggle. It’s a whole other thing to be out there with them, getting muddy, bloody and hurt. Because that’s the reality. You will stay safe if you don’t do anything but you also won’t know what it feels like to play.